Chapter 77: The Old Man’s Question
Volume 1: The First Civilization
Chapter 77: The Old Man’s Question
Elder Sen hadn’t changed much.
Same white hair. Same carved staff. Same sharp eyes that missed nothing, even from across a crowded hall.
"You’ve grown taller," he said, before Aren had fully stepped through the doorway. "And apparently more troublesome."
"I didn’t mean to cause trouble."
"Nobody ever means to." Sen gestured toward the low table, the same one Aren remembered from years ago. "Sit. Both of you. You’ve walked far enough to earn a meal before we speak of anything difficult."
Doran didn’t need telling twice. He dropped onto the mat beside the table with a groan of relief, rubbing at his knees.
"Long road?" Sen asked, amused.
"Long enough. I forgot how much I hate that rope ladder."
"Everyone forgets, every time. And every time, they climb it anyway." Sen settled slowly into his own seat, staff resting against his shoulder. "You’ll get used to it again by morning."
"I doubt that."
"You doubted the shovel too, once. Now half the valley wants one."
---
Food came quickly — roasted roots, something sweet Aren didn’t recognize, water so cold it must have come straight from a mountain spring. Doran ate like a man who’d forgotten breakfast entirely, which he probably had.
"Your village has grown," Sen said, watching them eat. "Word says you have a smith now. Iron tools. Records for everything down to the weather."
"Word travels faster than we do, it seems."
"It always has." Sen’s eyes crinkled slightly. "That’s rather the problem, isn’t it."
A young woman entered briefly to refill their cups, offering a small bow toward Sen before retreating without a word. Doran watched her go, then leaned toward Aren.
"Even the servants move quiet here," he murmured. "Like Kael."
"Everyone in Greenleaf moves like Kael, a little."
"That’s unsettling."
"You get used to it."
"You keep saying that about things I never get used to."
Sen chuckled at that, low and quiet. "He’s not wrong to notice. We teach the young ones to move carefully in the trees before they learn much else. Habits stay, even off the branches."
"Explains a great deal," Doran said.
"It explains why my hall is quieter than most chiefs would prefer," Sen said. "I’ve grown fond of it, myself. Too many years of noisy councils before this one."
---
Aren set down his cup. "Kellan told us some tribes aren’t pleased."
"Some." Sen didn’t deny it. "Red Moss, mostly. A few smaller camps who feel forgotten whenever anyone larger makes a decision without asking them first."
"We didn’t ask to be chosen."
"I know that. You know that." Sen tapped his staff once against the floor. "The people spreading rumors don’t particularly care what either of us knows."
Doran, mouth still half full, mumbled something that might have been agreement.
"How bad is it, really?" Aren asked. "Beyond hurt feelings."
Sen considered that honestly. "Not war, if that’s your worry. Nobody’s raising spears over grain and iron. But trust is slower to rebuild than it is to lose, and a valley full of tribes that don’t trust each other is a valley that forgets how to help each other when it matters."
"Like the Black Fang."
"Exactly like the Black Fang." Sen’s expression darkened slightly at the memory. "We built something rare that season. An alliance that actually held. I’d rather not watch it come apart over a shipment of grain."
---
"What do they say, exactly?" Aren asked. "The rumors."
Sen considered the question longer than it seemed to need. "That you talk to spirits. That the System you carry lets you see the future. That Stone River fears you enough to buy your favor with iron."
"None of that’s true."
"I didn’t think it was." Sen’s voice stayed even. "But truth rarely slows a good story down."
He paused, tapping the staff lightly against the floor, as though weighing whether to say more.
"There’s another version too," Sen added. "Older. Quieter. Fewer people repeat it, but I’ve heard it twice now from two different mouths that never met each other."
"What version?"
"That the boy from the eastern valley isn’t simply clever. That something followed him out of the Whispering Forest years ago, and it’s still watching whatever he builds." Sen’s eyes stayed steady on Aren’s face. "Golden eyes, one of them said. I didn’t ask where she’d heard it."
---
Doran finally swallowed enough to speak. "So what happens if nobody corrects it?"
"Then it grows. Bigger with each telling, until even the people who started it don’t recognize their own words anymore." Sen looked at Aren directly now. "That’s why I sent for you. Not to warn you away from anything. To ask you to stand in front of people and simply be yourself. Ordinary, in whatever way you actually are."
---
Aren almost laughed. "I’m not sure how ordinary I actually am."
"Nobody who’s done what you’ve done ever is." Sen’s mouth twitched, almost a smile. "But you’re not what the stories say either. That much I remember clearly enough."
"What do you remember?"
"A boy who drew a plan on a table with charcoal. Who admitted when he didn’t know something instead of pretending otherwise." Sen’s gaze softened slightly. "That’s worth more than any story people are telling about you now."
---
The hall grew quiet for a moment. Outside, children’s laughter carried faintly through the wooden walls, distant and easy.
"There’s a gathering tomorrow," Sen said finally. "Traders. A few hunters from Red Moss, passing through on other business. If you’re willing, stand among them. Answer whatever they ask honestly. Let them see you instead of hearing about you."
Doran shifted, uneasy. "That sounds like a lot of pressure for one afternoon."
"It is." Sen didn’t soften that. "But rumors don’t survive contact with something plain and honest. They only survive distance."
Doran leaned back on his hands, considering. "And if someone from Red Moss decides to make trouble instead of asking honest questions?"
"Then you’ll have me beside you, and every guard this settlement has watching from the platforms above." Sen’s voice carried the calm certainty of a man who’d handled worse gatherings than this one. "Nobody starts trouble in my hall twice. Most learn the first time is enough."
"Comforting," Doran muttered.
"It’s meant to be practical, not comforting. There’s a difference."
---
Aren thought about it. About Rokan’s warning at the gate. About Lira’s herbs, still tucked in his pack, meant for exactly this kind of old man with aching hands.
"I’ll do it."
Sen nodded, satisfied but not surprised. "Good. Rest tonight. Tomorrow will ask more of you than today did."
He reached beneath the table and produced a small clay jar, sliding it across toward Aren.
"Salve, for the hands. My knuckles ache worse every winter, and I suspect Lira sent something similar with you, judging by the way you keep glancing at your pack."
Aren blinked. "She did, actually."
"I thought as much. She has her master’s habits already." Sen accepted the pouch Aren handed over in exchange, turning it over once before setting it aside. "Tell her an old man’s grateful. And tell her master the same, when you see her next."
"I will."
Doran watched the exchange with mild amusement. "You two have known each other five minutes and you’re already trading medicine."
"Some friendships start with less," Sen said. "A meal, a fair trade, an honest answer. That’s usually enough."
---
Later, in the guest quarters, Doran flopped onto his sleeping mat with a groan. "You just agreed to stand in front of strangers and let them judge you. Whole afternoon of it."
"Seemed like the point of coming here."
"Didn’t think it’d happen this fast."
"Neither did I." Aren stared up at the wooden ceiling, listening to the settlement’s noise slowly fade into night. "But Sen’s right. The longer we let the stories grow on their own, the harder they’ll be to unmake later."
Doran grunted, already half asleep. "Sen wasn’t wrong to warn you, though. About that rumor."
"No. He wasn’t."
"You going to tell the rest of them tomorrow? The traders. Red Moss."
Aren thought about it a long moment. "Only if they ask directly. I won’t offer it freely."
"Wise."
"Or cowardly."
"Can be both." Doran’s voice was already fading. "Most wise things are, in my experience."
He was snoring within the minute, leaving Aren alone with the sound of the settlement finally going quiet outside.
Aren stayed awake a while longer, staring up at the wooden ceiling, listening to the last voices fade one by one into silence. Somewhere out past the platforms, an owl called once, then nothing.
Tomorrow would ask more of him than Sen had said plainly. He knew that much already. Whatever answers he gave in that gathering wouldn’t just settle rumors — they’d decide, in some small way, what kind of story people told about the valley for years afterward.
He closed his eyes and let that thought sit with him until sleep finally came.
Aren lay awake a while longer, turning the words over, wondering exactly how far that particular story had already traveled — and how much of it, unlike the rest, might actually be true.
End of Chapter 77